Put aside, for a moment, the notion that a comedy like The Hangover really doesn’t need a sequel. The movie has performed spectacularly well, and will likely earn $200m this summer, wo sequel plans that Warner Brothers laid months ago are very likely going to come to fruition. Which means that director Todd Phillips and stars Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper are already fielding questions about it. What they suggest we can expect from The Hangover 2 is after the jump. Read More »

After it took the top spot at the box office this weekend and enjoyed relatively good reviews to boot, everyone wants to talk about The Hangover. (The reviews are justified. We didn’t run one, for which I blame E3, but it’s a great comedy.) Some folks are persistently calling it a sleeper hit, which is absurd; as Jeff Wells points, out, it’s just a hit. Period. Todd Phillips took a mediocre script, seriously reworked it and worked with his producers to secure a solid, cheap trio to headline the project. The result is gold. But is it also true? Nikki Finke claims to have the scoop on the ‘real’ Hangover story. But that’s not even as interesting as what happened between script and screen. Read More »

Steve Mason has checked in with the Friday night box office estimates. Pixar’s Up might end up winning the weekend, adding another $13.5 Million on Friday for an estimated $45 Million 3-Day. The Hangover took in an estimated $17 Million on Friday, headed for #2 for the weekend with $44 Million. The real loser this week is Land of the Lost, which made an estimated $8 Million on Friday, and is expected to end the weekend with only $23 Million. The movie was made for over $100 million. Star Trek remains in the top five, while Drag Me To Hell falls to #6 in the film’s second weekend. Full Box office estimates after the jump.

IGN has premiered a new red band trailer for The Hangover that is (a) quite funny and (b) wildly spoileriffic. Not every joke is given away by this clip, but a whole lot of the good stuff is egregiously teased, at least. The movie is almost a detective story, and for maximum effect it’s better to see a lot of these gags in context rather than chopped up in a trailer blender. But if you really can’t wait until Friday to see the latest from Todd Phillips (Old School) then we’ve got the clip after the jump. Read More »

What you are about to see is requisite viewing and categorically real: scruffy snuggler and heavyweight comedian Zach Galifianakis interviewing Natalie Portman about her pooch. Other topics discussed on this rather hirsute (or is it?) edition of the très awkward talk show Between Two Ferns include the dilemmas of working with Wookiees and pet musk. And, cough, IMDB.

With Galifianakis set to become a big ole’ tabloid star with June’s The Hangover, we were a bit concerned if anyone would remember to feed his ferns. Our worries were for naught. They have almost certainly been feasting on large children.Read More »

Warner Bros has released a new red band “preview” from the upcoming Todd Phillips‘ comedy The Hangover. This uncensored clip is kinda weird — an amalgamation of scenes from the film, but not quite in the form of a traditional trailer, set to Mike Tyson singing a rendition of Phil Collin’s “In The Air Tonight”. I’ve embedded the red band preview after the jump.Read More »

Over the last year, many names have been batted around for the title role in The Green Lantern, including Star Trek‘s Chris Pine and dorm-poster staple Ryan Gosling. According to a very confident-sounding Drew at HitFix, actor Bradley Cooper is now closer than any other dude to being a lock for the DC superhero and planned film franchise.

Those who pay attention to summer-buzz know that Cooper is lined-up for a breakout performance in June’s The Hangover, an R-rated comedy from Todd Phillips that is testing through the friggin’ roof. We’ve been predicting major things for the film for months. Moreover, a sequel has already been greenlit, which is quite rare for the genre. In the past, Cooper has done a lot of TV work (Alias, Kitchen Confidential, Nip/Tuck) and appeared in films like Yes Man. He’s a likable actor who seems geared for bigger “everyman”-type roles. But is he the ideal choice to play Hal Jordan? Commenters, mount up.

After Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) signed on to direct, Warner Bros.announced a $150 million budget for The Green Lantern, with shooting still set for July in Sydney, Australia. It’s obviously a decisive step for DC/WB coming off The Dark Knight, and it’ll be interesting to see how “serious” they go. With a face that will soon be more associated with comedy than action, we’ll be sure to update if Cooper becomes officially attached.

When Warner Bros premiered the latest trailer for Todd Phillip‘s The Hangover in front of a packed theatre of theater owners at ShoWest, it received the biggest laughs and best response of probably anything shown during the 4-day convention. Personally, I was far more impressed with some of the other presentations (see the video blog), but you could tell that the movie exhibitors were in love with The Hangover. The film has also tested highly in initial test screenings.

So it comes as no surprise to me that Warner Bros has already announced a sequel, hiring director Phillips and Scot Armstrong to pen a screenplay. But the film doesn’t come out for another two months, on June 5th, but the studio wants to be ready, and hopes to go into production later this year. But for now, you can watch the movie trailer that was released last week.

I just got back from ShowWest in Las Vegas. ShoWest is a convention for theater owners where, among other things, Hollywood previews some of their upcoming movies. You’ve seen some of my ShoWest overage on the site over the last week, but there was so much going on that I couldn’t get to it all. Frosty from Collider joins me in this video blog wrap-up, where we take a look at nearly everything that we saw over the course of the four day convention. We broke it into two parts because it runs a little bit long. Here is some of the stuff we talked about:

Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, Tron 2 3-D, Beauty and the Beast in 3-D, Angels & Demons, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works, The Hurt Locker, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Hangover, Terminator Salvation, Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, The Proposal, The Princess and the Frog, Men in Black 3, Spider-Man 4, Ghostbusters 3, The Ugly Truth, Julie and Julia, and The Year One.

In the last 5 minutes of the video, George (El Guapo) from Latino Review, Alex from First Showing, Ed from Coming Soon, and Katey from Cinemablend make a cameo appearance and briefly discuss their favorite things from the con. A big thanks goes to Katey Rich for producing this segment. She did the camera work and helped us organize the talking points. Without her, we would have been babbling even more than we did. Part 2 is after the jump.

At ShoWest, Warner Bros premiered a new trailer for Todd Phillips‘ new comedy The Hangover. It’s pretty much an extended version of the teaser trailer. The film tells the story of three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed buddy during their drunken misadventures in Las Vegas, then must retrace their steps in order to find him.

Phillips is the director of Old School and Road Trip, and while this movie doesn’t look as good as either of those films, it still looks pretty damn funny. And it’s rare to find a comedy that isn’t either produced by Judd Apatow, starring the regular Apatow crew, Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell now-a-days. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha, and Jeffrey Tambor. Watch the trailer after the jump and tell me what you think in the comments below.Read More »